UK Singles Chart: The 2000s

In the latter half of the 20th Century many people could tell you something which defined each decade in music. It could be the Rock n Roll of the 50s, the Psychedelic music of the 60s, Glam Rock of the 70s, New Romantics of the 80s and Brit Pop of the 90s. You could instead say Punk of the 70s or Hair Metal of the 80s. But how would one describe the 00s?
Nothing really stands out like those above examples do but what if we look a bit deeper into the music itself?

In the year 2000 it was all about the DJ and less about the guitar. By 2009 it was more or less the same but the middle part of the decade was all about guitars.

If we say the early part of the 00s was an extension of the 90s and the latter part was the 10s beginning then we could say the 00s was a decade of Indie Music. Except Indie Music is a genre that had been in the mainstream since the 80s.

From a personal perspective my interest in the charts was still there at the start of the decade but by the end of the decade I'd completely lost interest. Once Top of the Pops had finished it was all about music channels, but I was surprised to see how many songs I remember seeing frequently on the music channels that didn't chart and singles that charted highly that I have no recollection of seeing on the music channels.

There was a notable transformation once downloads became part of the charts. Prior to than one thing you could pretty much guarantee at least in the lower reaches of the charts was variety.

You had Dance music that was perhaps a bit specialist and not that radio friendly. Other genres that would be considered quite specialist could produce a handful of Top 40 singles. Music acts who's heyday was years behind them such as the Rolling Stones were still having minor hits as late as the mid-00s. Once downloads came in you had big Indie hits, but in the lower reaches of the charts were more obscure Indie hits.

Once Indie was on the decline we had Electropop doing exactly the same thing.

This is where people who say "modern music all sounds the same" may have a point. In 2009 there were loads of Electropop hits, many rappers and R&B singers had also started doing Electropop and most of the Indie music that remained was of the Electro variety. Dance music wise, whilst 2000 had lots of House, Garage, Trance etc by 2009 there were hardly any specialist genres in the charts and it was mostly EDM.

What's the difference between EDM and Electropop? I don't really know to be honest, my theory is if a DJ like David Guetta or Calvin Harris is involved then it's EDM, otherwise it's Electropop.

The burning question is has chart music moved on since 2009?